Les Six | French composers | Britannica.com French composers France Les Six, ( French: “The Six”) group of early 20th-century French composers whose music represents a strong reaction against the heavy German Romanticism of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss , as well as against the chromaticism and lush orchestration of Claude Debussy . Les Six were Darius Milhaud , Francis Poulenc , Arthur Honegger , Georges Auric , Louis Durey, and Germaine Tailleferre. The French critic Henri Collet originated the label Les Six in his article “The Russian Five, the French Six, and M. Erik Satie” (Comoedia, January 1920). Collet wished to draw a parallel between the well-known, highly nationalistic, late 19th-century Russian composers called The Five (Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky , Aleksandr Borodin , Mily Balakirev , and César Cui) and Les Six, who drew much of their inspiration from the music of Erik Satie and the poetry of Jean Cocteau .

The artificiality of Collet’s assemblage has often been remarked on by critics, and certainly each of the six composers developed along lines best suited to his or her own tastes and abilities. Yet it is impossible to ignore such distinctive elements as dry sonorities, sophisticated moods, and references to everyday life and vernacular entertainments that characterize each of these composers. Les Six performed together in a number of concerts, and they collaborated on the play-ballet Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel (first performed 1921; “The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower,” text and choreography by Cocteau). Learn More in these related articles: MPR: How "Les Six" became the most recognizable brand in French music How "Les Six" became the most recognizable brand in French music by Bill Morelock , Minnesota Public Radio May 28, 2005 Les Six in the 1920s: Jean Cocteau (at piano), Darius Milhaud, outline of Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, and Louis Durey (file photo) St. Paul, Minn.

— The writer and artistic gadfly Jean Cocteau is most famously credited with having defined and led that group of young French composers known as "Les Six" Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc and Louis Durey. However, a less well-known but equally remarkable character was as instrumental in creating the conditions in which The Six presented their music together for the first time, and became the most recognizable "brand" in French music. Blaise Cendras was a writer who hated to write. He craved action, danger, risk. He'd been an explorer, a beekeeper, a diamond dealer, a musicologist, novelist, truck driver, and art critic. He ran away from home at fifteen and met a traveling merchant who hired him as an assistant. Cendrars wandered the world from Russia to Persia to China. One month he might live in a hotel penthouse; the next he starved. The Great War took away his right arm, but that didn't keep him from driving racecars or exploring Africa and bringing home folk art and sculpture. Cendrars helped establish one of the trendiest artistic scenes in wartime Paris.

He was a founding member of Lyre et Palette, a society formed to present music recitals (originally Erik Satie, Ravel, Debussy), poetry readings (mostly by Cendrars and Cocteau), and exhibitions of paintings by Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso. The studio at 6, rue Huyghens was cramped, foul smelling, and by turns freezing and sweltering. Soon it was the place to see and be seen. Les Six in the 1950s And there, on June 6, 1917, a few weeks after Satie's ballet "Parade" marched defiantly into the French bourgeois imagination, half the illustrious group Satie had named "les Nouveaux Jeunes" made their first public appearance together. Georges Auric contributed a new Trio; Arthur Honegger brought settings of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire; and Louis Durey presented a two-piano piece called "Carillons" played by Auric and one Juliette Meerowitch.

Satie was there, too, and played a piano version of the already infamous "Parade." Germaine Tailleferre was in attendance, but not on the program. Francis Poulenc was just entering the army, and Darius Milhaud, ineligible for active duty, was working for the French Embassy in Brazil. It would be another two years—April 5, 1919—before all six of The Six would appear on the same concert program, again in the homely digs of the Lyre et Palette. Informality ruled. Volunteers from the audience moved chairs and pianos between pieces. A balky stove had to be coaxed to life by the musicians. Milhaud was back from Rio with his tango rhythms and rain forest exoticisms. The audience heard his String Quartet No. 4. Poulenc's "Mouvements Perpetuels" were played by pianist Ricardo Viñes. Louis Durey's "Images à Crusoe "and pieces by Honegger, Tailleferre and Auric rounded out the evening. It was a typical concert at 6, rue Huyghens, with one exception.

A music critic named Henri Collet was in the audience, and his instinct for a catchy hook led him to compare the six young French composers to the famous Russian Five—Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Mussorgsky, and Cui. His review bore the headline "Les Cinq Russes, les Six Français et Satie." The inclusion of Satie was a nice bit of knowing respect, like citing Muddy Waters when you mention the Stones. The combination, the alliance, the group seemed to please the public. Immediately, they were known as the collective "Les Six." Never mind that they were all distinct artists, highly diverse in their tastes and interests and influences. Although the Cocteau-Satie approach to music and spectacle touched them all, only Poulenc and Auric thought of themselves as true disciples. Milhaud's powerful Jewish-Provençal heritage, as well as his South American experiences, exerted a more substantial pull than a fashionable aesthetic. Honegger, a French-born Swiss, was mad about Richard Strauss and Max Reger. Durey still loved Ravel and Debussy, at least until his infatuation with the ideals of the Communist Revolution.

Germaine Tailleferre, devoted early to Ravel, experimented with many styles. Yet they, and their self-appointed ringleader Jean Cocteau, were smart enough not to blow against the wind. Though the alliance was completely artificial—a creation of the press nurtured by a public defenseless in the face of savvy branding—they continued to present themselves, to great demand, as a Supergroup. The music of "Les Six" was a product of their respective, individual gifts. Their notoriety, on the other hand, was the result of a killer proto-marketing campaign. Which still hypnotizes us after all these years: "Open Air" will present music by "Les Six" Tuesday night, May 31 at 8 on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Stations.

How "Les Six" became the most recognizable brand in French music | Classical MPR How "Les Six" became the most recognizable brand in French music May 28, 2005 Les Six in the 1920s file photo The writer and artistic gadfly Jean Cocteau is most famously credited with having defined and led that group of young French composers known as "Les Six" Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc and Louis Durey. However, a less well-known but equally remarkable character was as instrumental in creating the conditions in which The Six presented their music together for the first time, and became the most recognizable "brand" in French music. Blaise Cendras was a writer who hated to write. He craved action, danger, risk. He'd been an explorer, a beekeeper, a diamond dealer, a musicologist, novelist, truck driver, and art critic. He ran away from home at fifteen and met a traveling merchant who hired him as an assistant. Cendrars wandered the world from Russia to Persia to China.

One month he might live in a hotel penthouse; the next he starved. The Great War took away his right arm, but that didn't keep him from driving racecars or exploring Africa and bringing home folk art and sculpture. Cendrars helped establish one of the trendiest artistic scenes in wartime Paris. He was a founding member of Lyre et Palette, a society formed to present music recitals (originally Erik Satie, Ravel, Debussy), poetry readings (mostly by Cendrars and Cocteau), and exhibitions of paintings by Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso. The studio at 6, rue Huyghens was cramped, foul smelling, and by turns freezing and sweltering. Soon it was the place to see and be seen. Larger view Les Six in the 1950s Les Six in the 1950s file photo And there, on June 6, 1917, a few weeks after Satie's ballet "Parade" marched defiantly into the French bourgeois imagination, half the illustrious group Satie had named "les Nouveaux Jeunes" made their first public appearance together.

Georges Auric contributed a new Trio; Arthur Honegger brought settings of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire; and Louis Durey presented a two-piano piece called "Carillons" played by Auric and one Juliette Meerowitch. Satie was there, too, and played a piano version of the already infamous "Parade." Germaine Tailleferre was in attendance, but not on the program. Francis Poulenc was just entering the army, and Darius Milhaud, ineligible for active duty, was working for the French Embassy in Brazil. It would be another two years--April 5, 1919--before all six of The Six would appear on the same concert program, again in the homely digs of the Lyre et Palette. Informality ruled. Volunteers from the audience moved chairs and pianos between pieces. A balky stove had to be coaxed to life by the musicians. Milhaud was back from Rio with his tango rhythms and rain forest exoticisms. The audience heard his String Quartet No. 4. Poulenc's "Mouvements Perpetuels" were played by pianist Ricardo Vines.

Louis Durey's "Images a Crusoe "and pieces by Honegger, Tailleferre and Auric rounded out the evening. It was a typical concert at 6, rue Huyghens, with one exception. A music critic named Henri Collet was in the audience, and his instinct for a catchy hook led him to compare the six young French composers to the famous Russian Five--Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Mussorgsky, and Cui. His review bore the headline "Les Cinq Russes, les Six Francais et Satie." The inclusion of Satie was a nice bit of knowing respect, like citing Muddy Waters when you mention the Stones. The combination, the alliance, the group seemed to please the public. Immediately, they were known as the collective "Les Six." Never mind that they were all distinct artists, highly diverse in their tastes and interests and influences. Although the Cocteau-Satie approach to music and spectacle touched them all, only Poulenc and Auric thought of themselves as true disciples.

Milhaud's powerful Jewish-Provencal heritage, as well as his South American experiences, exerted a more substantial pull than a fashionable aesthetic. Honegger, a French-born Swiss, was mad about Richard Strauss and Max Reger. Durey still loved Ravel and Debussy, at least until his infatuation with the ideals of the Communist Revolution. Germaine Tailleferre, devoted early to Ravel, experimented with many styles. Yet they, and their self-appointed ringleader Jean Cocteau, were smart enough not to blow against the wind. Though the alliance was completely artificial--a creation of the press nurtured by a public defenseless in the face of savvy branding--they continued to present themselves, to great demand, as a Supergroup. The music of "Les Six" was a product of their respective, individual gifts. Their notoriety, on the other hand, was the result of a killer proto-marketing campaign. Gallery Les Six in the 1920s file photo About the author Six, Les | Article about Six, Les by The Free Dictionary Six, Les | Article about Six, Les by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Wikipedia .

Six, Les (lā sēs), a short-lived group of six young early 20th-century French musicians. They were united by their adverse reactions to the extravagant impressionism of French composers such as Claude Debussy Debussy, Claude Achille , 1862–1918, French composer, exponent of musical impressionism. He studied for 11 years at the Paris Conservatory, receiving its Grand Prix de Rome in 1884 for his cantata L'Enfant Prodigue. ..... Click the link for more information. and Maurice Ravel Ravel, Maurice , 1875–1937, French composer, b. in the Pyrenees. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1889, where he was later a student of Fauré. Ravel became a leading exponent of impressionism. ..... Click the link for more information. and the overwrought romanticism of Germans such as Richard Wagner Wagner, Richard , 1813–83, German composer, b. Leipzig. Life and Work Wagner was reared in a theatrical family, had a classical education, and began composing at 17. .....

Click the link for more information. and Richard Strauss Strauss, Richard , 1864–1949, German composer. Strauss brought to a culmination the development of the 19th-century symphonic poem, and was a leading composer of romantic opera in the early 20th cent. ..... Click the link for more information. . The group's name was coined in 1920 by the music critic Henri Collet. Inspired by the cool, abstract, and relatively unadorned compositions of Erik Satie Satie, Erik , 1866–1925, French composer, studied at the Paris Conservatory; pupil of Vincent D'Indy and Albert Roussel at the Schola Cantorum. He early realized that the romantic Wagnerian style was incompatible with the expression of French sensibility, and he developed ..... Click the link for more information. and by the works of Jean Cocteau Cocteau, Jean , 1889–1963, French writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He experimented audaciously in almost every artistic medium, becoming a leader of the French avant-garde in the 1920s. .....

Click the link for more information. , their literary prophet and spokesman, Les Six attempted to write in a more simplified, sophisticated, and often jazzily rhythmic fashion. Nonetheless, all of the composers maintained their own distinctive styles. Les Six consisted of Arthur Honegger Honegger, Arthur , 1892–1955, Swiss-French composer, studied at the conservatories of Zürich and Paris. One of the group of Parisian composers called Les Six, he wrote music ranging from satire to intensely religious works that are marked by incisive rhythms and sharp ..... Click the link for more information. , Darius Milhaud Milhaud, Darius , 1892–1974, French composer. Milhaud studied at the Paris Conservatory. In Brazil (1917–19) as an aide to Paul Claudel, poet and French minister to Brazil, he became acquainted with Brazilian folk music. ..... Click the link for more information. , Francis Poulenc Poulenc, Francis , 1899–1963, French composer and pianist.

He was one of Les Six, a group of French composers who subscribed to the aesthetic ideals of Erik Satie. ..... Click the link for more information. , Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983), the group's only woman. Six, Les a name applied in 1920 to a group of innovative French composers. The group included L. Durey, D. Milhaud, A. Honegger, G. Auric, F. Poulenc, and G. Tailleferre. The members, who possessed distinctive creative individualities, were united by a striving for a new simplicity and structural clarity in musical language and by a renunciation of the aesthetics of impressionism. After the 1920’s Les Six lost the significance of a distinctive group. REFERENCE DiumeniP, P. Sovremennye frantsuzskie kompozitory gruppy”Shesti. “ Leningrad, 1964. Les Six Jul.

15, 2011 · Features – Classical Les Six RSS By AllMusic Staff "Collet chose six names absolutely arbitrarily, those of Auric, Durey, Honegger, Poulenc, Tailleferre and me, simply because we knew each other and we were pals and appeared on the same musical programmes, no matter if our temperaments and personalities weren't at all the same! Auric and Poulenc followed ideas of Cocteau, Honegger followed German Romanticism, and myself, Mediterranean lyricism!" -- Darius Milhaud "The War to End All Wars" was over. Although the artillery was silenced, the war would continue on the artistic front. Nowhere was this more evident than in Paris, where exciting, adventurous, and simply amusing ideas were the fashion. As with any cutting-edge cultural scene, the visual arts, music, and ballet in post-World War I Paris were further enlivened by heated polemics, the antics of various cadres and cliques, and public disputes that more than once disintegrated into full-fledged riots.

In 1913, Paris had been convulsed by Igor Stravinsky 's and Sergei Diaghilev 's sensational succès de scandale, Le Sacre du printemps . One of the ballet's most vocal -- and certainly, most famous, critics -- was Camille Saint-Saëns . The esteemed French composer, once hailed as the leading light of French music, but by the 1910s viewed as a past-his-prime conservative, walked out during the ballet's premiere. Symbolically, at least, it represented a changing of the guard -- or more appropriately, of the avant-garde -- that heralded one of the most remarkable periods in the history of France's musical life. Shortly after the Armistice in 1918, Darius Milhaud , originally from Aix-en-Provence, settled in an apartment in Paris. The composer, then in his mid-20s, was already recognized as both extraordinarily prolific and immensely talented. Milhaud soon found himself one of a group of six young composers of diverse backgrounds and esthetic bents who met regularly to share opinions and, of course, their own music.

On Saturday, April 5, 1919, a concert was held in the Salle Huyghens which featured recent works by these five men and one woman: Milhaud, Georges Auric , Louis Durey , Arthur Honegger , Francis Poulenc , and Germaine Tailleferre . Afterwards, the group, along with several others, repaired to Milhaud's home. Among those present was the French critic Henri Collet . It was he who coined the collective name by which these "Nouveau Jeunes" would become best known: Les Six Français, Les Six for short. (At left, "Les Six, with a Singer," by Jacques-Emile Blanche. From left: Tailleferre, Milhaud, Honegger, Durey, Poulenc, Cocteau, Auric. From Emory University.) Early in 1920, Collet wrote two articles for the magazine Comoedia which were among the first to take notice of this group. "The Five Russians, the Six French, and Erik Satie " and "The Six French" explored both the roots and the effects of the new musical styles then sweeping through France.

The music of Stravinsky (who had studied with one of the Russian Five, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov ) had a particularly pervasive influence upon French music of the time; works like Le Sacre du printemps and L'histoire du soldat were all the rage among the younger composers, who realized how truly iconoclastic they were. Les Six's primary advocate and guiding spirit was the composer and eccentric personality Erik Satie (right). Satie's art was founded on extreme opposites: some of his works (like the three Gymnopédies and the symphonic drama Socrate ) are simple and austere, while others are rambunctious, humorous, frivolous, sarcastic, or quasi-philosophical. Satie was prone to using titles like Bureaucratic Sonatina , Pieces in the Shape of a Pear , and Things Seen from Right-to-Left without Glasses .

His 1917 ballet Parade features a typewriter, a police siren, and a factory whistle; the enigmatic piano work Vexations calls upon the pianist (or, more practically, a relay team of pianists) to play a grotesquely chromatic theme 840 times in succession, a feat that tests the very limits of endurance. In his music, Satie attempted to create a unique vision removed from all Germanic influences, antithetical to the grandeur and solemnity of Richard Wagner , and devoid of the voluptuousness of Richard Strauss . His dislikes included the music of the two greatest French composers of the era, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel . Satie's championing of Les Six is particularly interesting in light of the fact that Satie and Honegger had a mutual distaste for each other's music. Honegger's love of the music of Wagner -- as well as that of Johann Sebastian Bach , Strauss, and Max Reger -- no doubt rankled Satie's sensibilities. As a loose confederation of friends of dissimilar artistic persuasions, Les Six did not have a manifesto.

Still, others would attempt to define the ideals of the group or to capture something of a collective ethos. Among the more prominent figures to do so was poet, caricaturist, film maker, master of publicity, and self-proclaimed "animator" of Les Six, Jean Cocteau (left). "Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and night scents; we need down-to-earth music, everyday music," he opined. Cocteau called for a return to the music represented by the French music hall, disparaging Stravinsky's insidious charms, Debussy's mist, and Wagner's fog. Of the graceful music of Ravel, Cocteau said, "M. Ravel has refused the Legion d'Honneur, but all his music accepts it." No matter how much Cocteau disparaged these composers, the members of Les Six had wildly differing views about them. Milhaud, for example, who as a youth had found a live performance of Saint-Saëns' opera Samson et Dalila boring, was even more put off by Wagner's Ring cycle.

His antipathy to Wagner's music, however, was matched by Honegger's admiration for it. Milhaud showed substantially more enthusiasm for Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande . Furthermore, Milhaud championed the work of Arnold Schoenberg , whose music never took a place among the favorites of French listeners; it was Milhaud, in fact, who conducted the French premiere of Schoenberg's epochal Pierrot Lunaire . The artistic circle surrounding Les Six was a cross-section of the most innovative creative minds in Paris. Sets for various productions of works by Les Six and Satie were designed by Georges Braque , Fernand Léger , Francis Picabia , Raoul Dufy , and Pablo Picasso ; the film maker René Clair contributed to Satie's ballet Relâche ; and Coco Chanel designed costumes for the Milhaud/Diaghilev ballet Le train bleu . The composers also shared an appreciation of poets such as Paul Eluard , Louis Aragon , and Guillaume Apollinaire (right), all of whose verses were often set by more than one member of Les Six.

In fact, Poulenc and Durey met when Poulenc heard that Durey, like himself, was composing settings of texts from Apollinaire's Le bestiare au cortège d'Orphée. Poulenc arranged a meeting at which the composers befriended one another; Poulenc even dedicated his own settings to Durey. Besides their shared love of certain poets, the members of Les Six produced a prodigious quantity of incidental music and film scores. In fact, Auric eventually composed almost exclusively for film. His cinematic collaborations with Cocteau contributed greatly to some of the most striking French movies of the period. His score for the 1952 Toulouse-Lautrec biopic Moulin Rouge -- especially the haunting song "Where Is Your Heart?" -- became a big hit in America, though neither the song nor the score were nominated for an Academy Award. Despite the group's somewhat inaccurate image as a tightly knit collective, there was, in fact, only one "collaborative" effort that involved all six members: a set of short piano pieces published in 1920 under the title Album des Six.

A later would-be group effort was the ballet Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel . Staged in Paris by the Ballet Suedois on June 18, 1921, the work boasted a scenario by Cocteau and "musique des Six." The individual names of the composers were not used in the advertisements, but the Parisian cognoscenti were well enough aware of the parties involved in the production. Initially, Durey had agreed to the participate in the project but soon withdrew; Germaine Tailleferre wrote an additional number to fill the gap. The audience at the premiere was predictably split, both cheering and jeering filling the air in counterpoint. Even so, the ballet was something of a box office success, and further performances found a more accepting, even enthusiastic, audience. In 1927, Auric, Milhaud, and Poulenc contributed to a ballet called L'eventail de Jeanne , which also included music by Ravel, Albert Roussel , Florent Schmitt , Jacques Ibert , Marcel Delannoy , Pierre-Octave Ferroud , and Alexis Roland-Manuel .

Although the spirit of Les Six lived on beyond the heady years of the early 1920s, the group became less cohesive with the passage of time. On December 11, 1929, a concert was held in Paris in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the group's emergence. Auric did not attend, but Durey, who had by then distanced himself from Les Six, did. In 1953 the members of Les Six once again assembled for a concert of their music. Cocteau spoke and unveiled a poster (right) he produced specially for the occasion. Cocteau's depiction of the group was a delightful and telling caricature: while the composers are sketchily, even offhandedly depicted, Cocteau appears in detail at the center of the group. Both in the poster and in life, Cocteau was indeed was the lynchpin that defined Les Six even more than the efforts of the composers themselves. The concert presented the composers' music in a rather serious light. None of the works played could be counted among their respective composers' most popular, and none could rightly be characterized as light-hearted.

Decades after its heyday, it seemed as if the group had eschewed its flippant, young-Turkish image and wished to be recognized and remembered as one of the most potent, influential forces in French music in the 20th century. For the 40th anniversary of Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel in 1961, the members of Les Six, along with Cocteau, were awarded the Medal of La Ville de Paris. Their music, which had scandalized and delighted the city decades before, had now taken on the evocative quality of a soundtrack, a sonic portrait of an era that was one of the most vibrant in the cultural history of Paris. Les Six in later years: From left to right, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, and Louis Durey. Seated at the piano, Jean Cocteau.

Fondren Library acquires ‘treasure trove’ of materials belonging to composer Poulenc Fondren Library acquires ‘treasure trove’ of materials belonging to composer Poulenc Jeff Falk – May 4, 2015 Posted in: Current News Largely self-taught and prodigious in both secular and sacred genres, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) is considered to be among France’s leading composers of the 20th century. This spring Fondren Library acquired a sizable archive containing Poulenc’s original musical manuscripts, signed and inscribed printed scores and letters. The archive is now open to the public in the library’s Woodson Research Center . Fondren Library's Mary Brower, left, and Dara Flinn review materials belonging to the library's new Francis Poulenc archive. Photos by Jeff Fitlow “Poulenc’s music, particularly for solo piano, voice and choir, stands as some of the most important Western art music to appear after the First World War, by turn irreverent, sensuous and deeply sentimental,” said Mary Brower, Fondren’s music librarian, who oversaw the acquisition.

The materials are part of the Lambiotte Poulenc Archive from the family of Rose Lambiotte (1891-1964). Lambiotte was a longtime friend of the composer, to whom he dedicated “Adelina à la Promenade” from the song cycle “Trois Chansons de F. Garcia-Lorca” and the “13e Improvisation” for piano solo. Lambiotte’s husband, Auguste, was a wealthy Belgian industrialist and noted book collector. The Lambiottes became Poulenc’s Belgian family, so to speak, in the mid-1940s, and he frequently stayed with them at their Rue Saint-Bernard mansion in Brussels. Mentored by Parisian avant-garde leaders Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau, Poulenc was a member of the group of French composers known as “Les Six,” the other five of whom were Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, Arthur Honegger and Louis Durey.

“They (Les Six) were a reaction to the late-Romanticism in music at the time, to composers such as Wagner or Impressionists like Debussy,” Brower said. “Their style generally emphasized more brevity and included a lot of humor and parody. They were inspired by everyday life subjects instead of more high-minded things. They were most interested in popular music genres at the time, including jazz, cabaret and even circus music.” In recent years, leading regional music institutions such as Houston Grand Opera, Houston Symphony and Houston Chamber Choir have performed works by Poulenc. The archive consists of original autograph musical manuscripts, including a working draft of the “Aubade Concerto Chorégraphique pour Piano et Dix-Huit Instruments,” the only known autographs of the “Nocturne No. 1” in C for piano and the “Quatre Poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire pour Baryton (ou Mezzo) et Piano” as well as signed and inscribed printed scores, approximately 100 letters in Poulenc’s handwriting and an autographed Pierre Balmain silk scarf. A Pierre Balmain silk scarf autographed by Poulenc is part of the collection.

The Poulenc acquisition expands Fondren’s 20th-century special collections in music, Brower said. “I’m very happy to add these more recent materials because of the opportunities for new discovery and research. They have never before been publicly available for study,” she said. The materials were purchased from descendants of Rose Lambiotte, siblings Peter and Caroline Donhauser, through an antiquarian music vendor in New York City. By coincidence, Peter Donhauser’s wife, Whitney, is a native of Houston, and members of her family are longtime acquaintances of Allen Matusow, the William Gaines Twyman Professor of History at Rice. Keith Chapman, music catalog librarian, and David Bynog, assistant head of library acquisitions, collaborated with Brower in studying the archive’s materials. Dara Flinn, a Woodson archivist and special collections librarian, processed the materials with appropriate preservation measures, wrote the archival finding aid describing the materials and prepared them for public viewing.

“He (Poulenc) is perhaps the most important voice of French neoclassicism and modernism in an era dominated by Austrians and Russians,” said Peter Loewen, associate professor of musicology at Rice’s Shepherd School of Music, who wrote a letter supporting the purchase of the archive. “This archive is a veritable treasure trove of cultural insight to a society searching for identity in the postwar, post-Debussy era.” Les Six – The French Composers and Their Mentors Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie | Sounds of the Universe In stock Add to Bag AMAZON PRICE £12.82 JUL 2015 Les Six were a group of young French composers consisting of Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre, brought together by Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau at the end of the First World War, who achieved international fame in the 1920s.

A unique collaboration that has never been matched in classical music, with Cocteau as their spokesman, Les Six were a phenomenon born out of the shock of the German invasion of France in 1914 an avant-garde riposte to the impressionism of composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel and the romanticism of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. The individual members were already respected in Parisian musical circles as Les Nouveaux Jeunes before they became Les Six, but they soon found themselves moving in an artistic milieu that included Sergei Diaghilev, René Clair, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and the writers Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Raymond Radiguet, Paul Claudel, Maurice Sachs and Paul Morand. Many fruitful collaborations arose out of these associations, and Satie would perform with them in concerts. Les Six continued to perform together intermittently during the 1920s and later, and most carried on to have long and distinguished musical careers, including the only woman of the group, Tailleferre. This is the first book in English to examine comprehensively the legacy of the group.

It provides a unique portrait of artistic Paris in the 1920s and the subsequent careers of Les Six and those associated with them. Springtime in Paris: Les Six From Emory University Three weeks after the premiere of Parade , Blaise Cendrars organized an evening of poetry and music in honor of the ballet, attended by artists and musicians who rallied around Satie, forming the group Les Nouveaux Jeunes, and marking the emergence of a new musical avant-garde. Les Nouveaux Jeunes' lineup would change somewhat, and finally crystallize with Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Louis Durey, Germaine Tailleferre, and Georges Auric. With Erik Satie as spiritual father, and Jean Cocteau as spokesman, the group was christened "Les Six" by critic Henri Collet, after the Russian "Mighty Five." With this identifying label, and a recognizable aesthetic of simplicity, the composers who had been writing privately for years were able to gain attention from the public as a force.

Despite the elements the six composers had in common, there differences were far greater, and by the 1920s each was pursuing solo careers on their own. Today, we best remember Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Arthur Honegger. Few pieces by the other three are performed. Arthur Honegger "Composing is not a profession. It is a mania - a harmless madness." - Honegger From Arthur Honegger A major early modern influence on French music, Honegger was one of Les Six's founding members. Ironically, Honegger was probably the most "Germanically" influenced of the members of the group, in stated contrast to the original aesthetic ideal as set by Cocteau. He also devoted more time to "serious study" than most of his contemporaries. In time, Honegger rejected Satie, and strove after high seriousness in a way alien to the rest of the group. While most members primarily produced short, jewel-like pieces, Honegger was the symphonist.

Listen to an excerpt of his work: Sonate pour violon seul (RealAudio 3.0: How to Listen .) Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) "Above all do not analyze my music. . . Love it!" - Poulenc Like Satie, Francis Poulenc held a strong opposition to the excessive sensitiveness and refinement of French Impressionism. His works were marked by this plain statement and frankness of thought, especially in early works. Poulenc was the finest choral composer of the group and is still praised for his spontaneous melodic invention and originality. Listen to an excerpt of his work: Sonate pour violoncelle et piano (RealAudio 3.0: How to Listen .) Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) ""I have no aesthetic rules, or philosophy, or theories. I love to write music. I always do it with pleasure, otherwise I just do not write it." - Milhaud Darius Milhaud Three Musicians, by Pablo Picasso From Synthetic Cubism ; click painting for a larger image. Georges Auric came to Les Six as a student of Satie.

Together with Honegger and Durey he was one of the founding members of the group, but his music had more in common with that of Poulenc, his contemporary, than that of Honegger and Durey, his seniors. Together with Poulenc and Milhaud, Auric most exemplified the ideals put forth by Cocteau. As one critic noted, "with these three we penetrate more closely into the heart of the artichoke . . . they have the bite, the courage, the brutality." Listen to an excerpt of his work: Cinq Bagatelles (RealAudio 3.0: How to Listen .) Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) Germaine Tailleferre was the one woman in Les Six, and perhaps because of this, is today also one of the most recorded. She was a student of Darius Milhaud, and was one of the latecomers to Les Six.

Listen to an excerpt of her work: Suite Burlesque (RealAudio 3.0: How to Listen .) Other Resources Music of Les Six : This Classical.Net site gives a detailed review of Les Maris de la Tour Eiffel, the closest thing to a collective work performed by Les Six. A Poulenc Biography : This straightforward biography offers a brief look at Poulenc's relationship with Les Six before going into greater depth about his composing career. Opera: A Philatelic History : Brief information about the members of Les Six, accompanied by images of postage stamps bearing their portraits. Arthur Honegger Biography : Without going into great depth of detail, this biography offers an introduction to the man and his work.

Question: The group of French composers known as 'Les Six' were, Francis Poulenc, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Germaine Tailleferre and which other?
Answer: DARIUS MILHAUD